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Hey all!

Im very new to this forum and Skaven aswell! And im currently in a boggle by deciding what Weapon team is the best, I Hear the Warpfire Thrower is used most but im wondering other peoples opinions.

I personally love the Ratling guns.

Ratling guns aren't as effective as they were in the last book. In the last book they would auto-hit though some think it was an error in the rules (which it most likely was that they never fixed).

Warpfire throwers and poisoned wind mortars tend to be the most devastating.

Warpfire throwers do a lot of damage when they hit home and hit well (a good handful of dead enemies) but lack range and have a very unkind misfire chart. Best to have some small slave walls to protect them on their way to a target from ranged fire and magic missiles. Usually it's best to fight an enemy that comes to you with warpfire throwers. If you have to come to their shooting it tends to end badly.

Poisoned wind mortars are anti-armor so good vs. cavalry and move well. Their role is pretty much opposite of warpfire throwers. They have a good range, can move and shoot, can't move and fire and are good against armored units instead of massed infantry/monstrous infantry/most infantry in general. Not very accurate but a fairly forgiving misfire chart for the mortar at least. I hear this is the only weapons team a pro i know uses. Probably because it's the only weapons team with good range and handled well enough won't be shot to death easily. In the case of enemies with as long range shots you can just hide the weapons team behind the parent unit and use its blind fire mode. Not sure how effective that would be though.

I find ratling guns don't do nearly enough damage. Normally enough shots fail to hit or fail to wound that it's just not enough. Rolling more than twice seems really dangerous indeed and full of misfires. If you misfire it usually just shoots randomly.

It's agreed the doom flayer sucks but i almost want to take a few just to use them and prove in one situation maybe they don't suck so bad. In theory they're ok but the one wound on the model means they can die to everything and anything easily.

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The point of most weapons teams is they can misfire a bunch and usually are insanely fragile. One volley of shots from anything can pretty much kill them even if you are getting the 4+ ward save from the parent unit. It just takes a few successful wounds before saves to have a good chance of killing it. Chances are even slaves with slings could kill them.

Ratling guns have a purpose in clearing away chaff, which with their range and decent average number of shots is easily within their power. They're also the cheapest of the weapon teams by 10-15ish points I believe. They're definitely not my first choice, but I definitely see their use.

Really the issue with weapon teams of all stripes is how insanely fragile they are for their cost. For 75 points I can get a Warpfire Thrower, or for 90 I could get a Warplightning Cannon. Granted, core vs rare but still. My common enemies are High Elves, Lizards, Tomb Kings and Brettonians/Dwarves. Not a single one of those forces lacks a BS based unit capable of removing a weapon team with a single volley. Heck, really only Warriors of Chaos lack the ability.

I've actually tried ratling guns and they don't seem to remove chaff quickly enough unfortunately. Not only that but you absolutely have to buy a unit of clanrats or stormvermin with them and you may not even really use that unit but if you make the unit good that makes the end cost that much higher. Also there are normally better weapons teams like warpfire throwers (admittedly way short ranged which is a bad thing for how easily they can die) and poisoned wind mortars (which can outrange the enemy fairly easily).

For me what I use against chaff lately is slaves with slings. Super cheap unit but you need a crap ton of them. Sure their BS is crap but they have massed firepower and only cost about 50 pts per unit. You also only need to buy them as their own unit instead of needing a parent unit. Then you take into account slaves only panic other slaves. They may not be fantastic but if you have 5 units of 20 model units each totaling up to 100 or more slaves with slings then you have enough firepower to kill chaff, weapons teams and pretty much any other light units that come at you. The only real downside is how expensive this would be as far as money goes but if you play skaven you probably have a crap ton of clanrats anyway.

Anyway just for reference I played a game against an opponent with a mostly goblin spider riders army and the slaves with slings killed nearly all of them (or forced them to flee). The real boon here is that they're much cheaper in points that nightrunners with slings and can be massed more easily than gutter runners with slings which should be used against monsters. Also slaves with slings take up your core choice so you can use it for minimum core and then use up special choices and fill up your rare choices to the brim.

So yeah ratling guns can probably kill chaff but I feel like slaves with slings do better.

The Warpfire Thrower does the most damage, but is the hardest to line up a shot with, and has the shortest range and the scariest Misfire chart.

The Poisoned Wind Mortar will get the most shots off, and has the narrowest window of ideal targets.

The Ratling Gun is the most reliable, and does the least damage.

Slaves with slings aren't killing much. 40 shots, needing 7's to hit (multiple shot and moving/long range) is, what, like 3 hits?
Whereas the Ratling Gun is laying down an average of 7, more accurate, S4, AP, Warpstone Weapon shots.
I think Weapon Teams are far too fragile, for the most part, but in terms of shooting? They're better.

And as for the Weapon Team becoming "more expensive" as you count the Parent Unit, you've got it backwards. The Clanrats and Stormvermin are what you want to field. The Weapon Team is an add-on. Maybe it'll help. Maybe not.

I always bring a Doom Flayer just because it looks awesome. Its usually ignored so it makes it into combat. The impact hits are all I can rely on to hit though. I try to flank with it or at least keepit far enough away that if it misfires and blows up it won't get many of my guys. The explosion is something i actually hope for as it is very like to kill some guys.

I'll never ignore a 55pt T3 W1 model. That's just free points.
And you rely on the D3 impact hits? Not the Artillery Die after that?

...my Doomflayer is on a bigger base and counts as 6 Stormvermin.

Warpsolution wrote:
I'll never ignore a 55pt T3 W1 model. That's just free points.
And you rely on the D3 impact hits? Not the Artillery Die after that?

...my Doomflayer is on a bigger base and counts as 6 Stormvermin.

Huh, that is an excellent use for the two I have...

My artillery dice love landing on 2 or ! Unless my wife rolls them...